The Yonkers address half a block from my house.
A cathedral’s worth of panic bells went off inside me.
I hadn’t been expecting this one.
“That Yonkers PD ticket was scratched on Scott’s illegally parked vehicle a couple of hours before the coroner’s time of death,” Jeff said calmly. “I looked up the location on a map.
“It’s half a block from your house, Lauren. Talk to me here. Make all this make some sense. Because I have grand jury justification right now. A witness that saw you plant the gun. And evidence that puts Scott down the block from your house just before the ME’s time of death. I’ve won cases with far less, Lauren. But you’re a friend. I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt before any formal proceedings. This is your first and last chance to tell me what happened, and to let me help you.”
Chapter 78
IT WAS TEMPTING. I’d held back so much for so long. Had lied to my friends and colleagues.
The desire to justify myself, to relieve myself of my burden, was almost unbearable. I wanted to explain how, at first, I was just afraid, and how everything had happened so fast. How I’d only wanted to protect my husband, Paul. How I did it all for him.
Now I knew how so many of the suspects I’d put away over the years felt right before they folded, purged themselves, gave it up. Confession was the last step to forgiveness, wasn’t that the con?
But then I remembered.
I didn’t need forgiveness.
I had a pretty good Plan B.
I did something then that I suspected Jeff Buslik didn’t see too often in his high-powered corner office. I leaned back in the hot seat across from him, folded my hands on my tight skirt–clad lap, and smiled.
Then I swung for the fences!
“I see you have a lot of paper evidence here, Jeff,” I said. “But I’m wondering, do you have any video evidence?”
“What?” the chief deputy DA said. There was a look on his face that I’d never witnessed before. Complete befuddlement.
“Lauren, please. Now isn’t the time for nonsense, okay? I have a job to do here, and if you don’t want to try to informally take a step in the right direction, I guess we’ll have to —”
“Video evidence, Jeff,” I continued. “Video evidence is incontrovertible, isn’t it? The only reason I keep harping on it is that, in the course of my investigation, I came across a . . . well . . .”
I took my laptop out of my bag, turned it on, and hit “play.”
“Maybe you ought to see this for yourself,” I said. “You really should, Jeff.”
Chapter 79
I LET HIM WATCH from the beginning of the surveillance to the end, uninterrupted. I sat staring out his window at the stands in the stadium. My dad had taken me to my first game there when I was eight. I didn’t catch a home run, but I did taste my first beer when a drunk behind us dropped one on my head.
I wondered what my dad would think of all this, of me. Would he be ashamed? Or proud that I was capable of getting bare-knuckle down and dirty to fight for my survival? I listened for some sign from my father as I waited. But all I heard was the number 4 train rattling by.
When he was finished watching the DVD, Jeff Buslik snapped the laptop closed and took a good long look out the window himself.
We listened to the heavy silence together for a while.
The video was of Jeff’s boss, John Meade, but in a way, that was even better than if it had been of Jeff. Jeff was going to run for the DA’s office next November when Meade stepped down, and word was, he was a shoo-in to win. And that wasn’t the only office he would be seeking, it was rumored. Diamond-bright, black, and with real star presence, he was already being called the Barack Obama of the Bronx by the press.
But the political fact of life was, Jeff needed his boss’s blessing. John Meade was a Bronx institution, and Jeff was his right-hand man. Until Election Day, at least, they were inextricably connected.
Until Election Day, if John Meade crashed, Jeff would burn along with him.
Jeff seemed to realize this as much as I did. He looked like he had an upset stomach all of a sudden. A bad one. Finally, he moved his sour gaze onto me.
“Evidence,” I repeated. “You have it. I have it. Listen, I have no hard feelings, Jeff. I understand coming after me would be huge for you. National coverage, maybe celebrity status. I think it’s great for somebody to want to get ahead. But if you take me on, I swear to God, the next time you see this footage, it’ll be on the Fox News channel.”
Jeff thought about that one for a little while.
“Did you kill him, Lauren?” he finally said. “Did you actually kill Scott Thayer?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t you read the papers? Victor Ordonez did. Anyway, I am resigning. I just can’t take this crazy crap anymore. I think it’s best to go out on a high note. Kind of like your boss. Don’t you think that’s best?”
I stood and popped the DVD out of the laptop.
“We’re done here, right?” I said. “Our friendly little chat?”
Jeff sat there silent for another minute. Then he turned, and the shredder behind his desk screamed twice, almost with glee, as he fed Scott’s phone records and the parking ticket into it.
“We’re done, Lauren,” Jeff said quietly to the far wall. There was a sadness in his voice. He didn’t turn around again until I was gone.
“I didn’t kill him,” I finally said — but only after I was outside the building, walking to my car.
Part Three
THE WASHINGTON AFFAIR
Chapter 80
“MORE SPARKLING WATER, signora? More Chianti, signore?”
“Si,” Paul and I said in unison. Let the good times roll, right?
The stubbled young waiter beamed with elation as he topped off our glasses, almost as if we’d just granted him his life’s wish. Behind him, the pale stone walls of Monticiano, the newest and most expensive Italian restaurant in Greenridge, Connecticut, glowed like a Tuscan sunset.
Paul’s surprise dinner trip north to Litchfield County’s only four-star Italian had been more than welcome after my draining morning at the courthouse.
After what I’d managed to pull off with Jeff Buslik, I thought, as I took another mind-blowing bite of my fettuccine with truffles, I deserved a trip to the real Tuscany.
“Signora, the signore would like to propose a toast,” Paul said.
“To the future,” he said.
“To the future.”
We clinked glasses.
And to us being safe and together once and for all, I thought, taking a cool, clear sip of my San Pellegrino.
Paul drank his wine and leaned back, smiling. It was like he somehow sensed everything was okay, now that the craziness was over, and that our new life — our real life — was about to start.
In the flickering candlelight, I stared at Paul, almost as if for the first time. His sandy hair, his intense blue eyes, his strong hands — hands that had fought for me.
“Honey? Honey, listen,” Paul said, and he leaned across the table toward me. “Can you believe it?”
From the speakers, Frank Sinatra was singing “The Way You Look Tonight.”
Our wedding song.
Could it have gotten any more disgustingly perfect? My heart floated like the bubbles in my glass. That confirmed it, I decided. Paul and I would be together now. Finally happy, finally free. With the child we’d always wanted.
“Well, what do you think?” Paul asked after the song ended.
“The pasta?” I said. “Bellissima.”
“No,” Paul said. “The new neighborhood.”
Greenridge might have been just another quaint New England small town, except for the pricey art galleries, the pricey wine shops, and the pricey day spas up and down Main Street. Norman Rockwell meets SoHo. Monticiano itself was housed in a repurposed nineteenth-century firehouse. I’d read in New York magazine that a lot of New York City fashion designers and artists had
country homes here. With the second-lowest crime rate in the entire Northeast, why wouldn’t they?
“It’s mind boggling that we’re going to move anywhere,” I said. “But to here?”
“And you haven’t even seen the house yet,” Paul said. “The tour starts after dessert.”
A new house, I thought. I mean, a roof that didn’t leak? Doors that closed and stayed closed? I shook my head with amazement.
I think it was still spinning when the waiter came back ten minutes later. “Some cappuccino, signora? Tonight’s dessert special is cannoli with a lemon cream.”
“Si,” I said, leaning back on my banquette, basking in my relief, the golden glow of the night, our insanely good luck. “Si, si, si.”
Chapter 81
HALF AN HOUR LATER, Paul was driving faster than he ought to have been in his Camry. My shoulder belt and stomach tensed simultaneously as he suddenly braked, and we swerved off the ridiculously bucolic road we’d been winding our way along over hill and dale.
The sign outside my window, placed at the base of a stone fence, no doubt by kind woodland creatures or perhaps Robert Frost himself, read “Evergreens.”
In the fading light, the shadows of softly swaying pine trees along the drive printed a golden barcode across the fresh asphalt.
“What do you think?” Paul said, stopping the car.
“So far,” I said, looking around, “so awesome.”
“You hear that?” Paul said, rolling down his window.
I listened. All I could hear was the wind rustling the leaves.
“Hear what?”
Paul smiled.
“Exactly,” he said. “This is what it sounds like when there are no jackhammers or bus engines or raving homeless people. I’ve read about this somewhere. It’s called peace and quiet, I think.”
“What are those grayish-looking things alongside the road — with that green stuff on top?” I said, squinting out my window.
“Those are called trees,” Paul said. “They talk about them in the brochure. They come with the house — if you upgrade the cabinets.”
Paul restarted the car and continued on to the top of the hill, where he stopped again so I could see all the houses in our neighborhood. They were beautiful, what else? New England–style colonials, maybe a half dozen of them, well spaced and landscaped down a rolling valley.
“Okay,” I said, “what’s the downside? Where’s the catch? We’re right in the landing path of an airport?”
“Sorry,” Paul said as we began making our way back down the hill. “Greenridge has an ordinance against downsides. Besides, we’ve had enough downsides to last a couple of lifetimes.”
Paul didn’t know the half of it.
Chapter 82
WE PASSED AN ENORMOUS PLAYGROUND, tennis courts, a manicured baseball field. I looked out at the precisely laid, brand-new white lines. Yep, it looked like a real neighborhood. Leave It to Beaver’s maybe. My head continued to spin.
The sun was almost completely gone when we stopped in front of a large house beside a park with a stream.
“What’s this? The sales office?” I said.
Paul shook his head. He took out a key.
“It’s the clubhouse,” he said. “C’mon, I’ll show you the lay of the land.”
Inside were conference rooms, several flat-screen TVs, a well-stocked weight room. Fliers on the bulletin board touted babysitting and block parties. There was a sign-up sheet for something called a progressive dinner at one-fifty a head.
“And they’re putting in a pool in the spring,” Paul said, plopping down on a leather couch in the vaulted lobby space.
“How can . . . ,” I started. “Even with your raise, this seems . . .”
“The houses are expensive, but it’s pretty far from the city, so it’s less than you think. My new salary will cover us and then some. You want to see our house? At least it will be ours — if you love it as much as I do.”
I put up my hand.
“Just give me a second to pick up my jaw first.”
There was a halo of last light over the western hills as we pulled off the paved drive onto a dirt road that was still under construction. We crawled slowly past mounds of broken rock and heavy machinery.
“I need to take it slow,” Paul said. “There are nails and bolts scattered around from the construction. Don’t want to get a flat. Wait, we’re here.”
The dove-gray house Paul pulled in front of was . . . well, perfect. I took in the front porch, the soaring brick chimney, the graceful dormers on the third floor. Wait a second — there was a third floor? Everything looked done except the landscaping, which I was quite certain would be wonder-ful, too.
“C’mon,” Paul said. “I’ll show you the master suite.”
“Are we allowed to be here? Don’t we have to wait until the closing? Are you sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure,” Paul said with a laugh. “I’ll leave the headlights on so we can see where we’re going.”
We walked over the mounded dirt, and Paul opened the unlocked front door. Suddenly he threw me over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and pretended to trip as he brought me across the threshold. Our laughter and footsteps echoed off the gleaming hardwood floors. “I love it already,” I whispered. “I really love it, Paul.”
Paul showed me where everything would be. I could hardly take in the airplane hangar–size kitchen, my eyes darting from maple to granite to stainless steel. Even in the dark, the tree-covered hills out the windows were breathtaking.
“And this is where the nursery could go,” Paul said, hugging me in one of the upstairs rooms.
Outside the “nursery” window, stars were twinkling like diamond dust in the midnight-blue sky just above the dark treetops. My tears started flowing then. It was suddenly real. Our baby would grow up in this room. I saw myself holding a sweet-smelling, cooing bundle and pointing out the constellations, the rising moon.
Paul wiped away the tears on my face and kissed the ones on my throat.
“That bad, huh?” he whispered.
Then, as suddenly as I’d started, I stopped crying.
Because at that moment, the headlights of Paul’s car, which had been lighting the house, suddenly went out.
The tears went cold on my cheeks as the house turned as black as the spaces between the stars.
Chapter 83
“WHAT THE —?” Paul said in the dark. “Is it the battery? You have any idea, Lauren?”
I stared at him. What the hell was going on? Whatever it was, I didn’t like it.
“Hey, wait. I know,” Paul said. “My fault. I saw the tank was low yesterday, and I forgot to fill it. All this driving, we must have run out of gas.”
“Are you sure?” I said. I felt a little panicked actually. Guess I wasn’t really used to the country yet.
“Calm down, Lauren. This isn’t the South Bronx, Detective,” Paul said and laughed. “I’m positive that’s it. There has to be a gas can floating around here with all this construction equipment. You stay here. I’ll grab the flashlight and pooch around.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said. The unlit house had gone from cozy to creepy in no seconds flat.
“In those heels?” Paul said.
“Hey,” I thought, regaining my senses. “Instead of foraging for fuel, why don’t you just call Triple A with your cell phone?” Or better yet, I thought, glancing down the stairs into the darkness, 911.
Paul laughed after a minute.
“That’s my Lauren,” he said, going into his pocket. “Always have to spoil a little fun with that pesky logic.”
His hand came out empty.
“I left my cell charging in the car,” he said. “We’ll have to use yours.”
“It’s in my bag on my seat of the car.”
“Wait here. I’ll go and grab it.”
“Be careful,” I called to Paul.
“Don’t worry about me. This is Connecticut, sweetheart.”
> Chapter 84
THE NEXT FEW MINUTES went by slowly. A cold wind suddenly blew into the house from the window cut-out. I stared out at the swaying trees that now looked like they belonged on the set of The Blair Witch Project. Ghosts couldn’t haunt a new construction, could they?
I checked my watch again. Shouldn’t Paul be back by now? How long did it take to get a cell phone out of the car?
I stepped toward the stairs with relief when I finally heard Paul’s footsteps. He was standing on the open front-door threshold, holding a powerful flashlight. Had he gotten it from the trunk?
“You get through?” I called down.
The flashlight swung toward my face, blinding me. Then heavy footfalls pounded up the stairs.
“Quit it, Paul,” I said. “Not funny.”
“Wrong, bitch,” a strange voice said. Then a rough hand struck my chest, and I was thrown backward to the floor.
Not funny. And not Paul.
For the next half minute, I was unable to do anything. See, breathe, think, speak, make my heart beat. When I was able to concentrate again, I lifted my hand up and squinted at the face of the shadowed figure who was standing with an unnerving stillness behind the blinding flashlight.
“Who are you?” I said.
“You don’t know?” the voice said with disgust. “You actually have to rack your brain to come up with a name? You are one amazing bitch.”
The flashlight suddenly shifted up to the man’s face. Oh, Jesus.
I muffled a scream — which came out as a groan instead.
My lips began trembling as I recalled his mug shot. Dark, soulless eyes above high, pockmarked cheeks.
I was looking at Mark Ordonez.
The recently deceased Victor’s brother!
Where was my gun? was my next thought.
A soft, metallic click sounded beside the light. “You left it in the car, dumbass,” the drug dealer said, reading my mind.